Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford

First published: 1950; includes Some Do Not . . . , 1924; No More Parades, 1925; A Man Could Stand Up, 1926; The Last Post, 1928

Type of work: Novels

Type of plot: Impressionism

Time of plot: World War I and after

Locale: England and France

Principal characters

• Christopher Tietjens, the “last English Tory”
• Sylvia Tietjens, his wife
• Mark, his brother
• Macmaster, his friend
• General Campion, his godfather
• Valentine Wannop, his mistress

The Story:

Christopher Tietjens is probably the last real eighteenth century Tory in the England of pre-World War I. A thoroughly good man, he is so much a gentleman that he will not divorce his wife, Sylvia Tietjens, even though she is flagrantly unfaithful to him. It is even doubtful that the child she gave birth to is his, and she had earlier gone off for several weeks with another man; Christopher, however, holds that no gentleman should ever publicly disgrace a woman by divorcing her or even by admitting her infidelities. Sylvia hates her husband blindly because she could never break down his reserve, and all of her plots and meanness were for that purpose alone. She detested the various men she lived with, but she hated Christopher’s virtue more.

Christopher’s old-fashioned type of virtue grew out of his family background. His oldest brother, Mark, who had inherited the estate of Groby and its vast income, lives with a Frenchwoman whom he will probably never marry and who will certainly have no children, and the estate will one day belong to Christopher. The brothers fear that their father had committed suicide, for Sylvia had manipulated the old man into believing that Christopher lived off the earnings of immoral women and that he had sold her, his wife, to influential friends. Christopher thinks his father’s suicide had been a sign that the family is weakening; consequently, he will not accept one penny of the estate for himself. Mark, therefore, had proposed to set Sylvia up at Groby, with arrangements for the estate to go to her son. Even if the boy were not Christopher’s son, he must be treated as if he were a Tietjens. The plan suits Christopher, who has no interest in anything except protecting his wife’s name and his son’s future. Knowing that war is imminent, he wants to gather up the loose ends of his life before he leaves.

Christopher is one of the most brilliant men in the government service but, strangely, his brilliance coupled with his goodness makes everyone want to hurt him. His only real friend is Macmaster, a Scotsman and a Whig, who also is in the service. Perhaps their friendship is due primarily to the fact that Macmaster owes Christopher a great deal of money. Christopher has also loaned money to other men who, although they admire him, seem bent on ruining him.

Christopher often wishes to make Valentine Wannop his mistress. Valentine is a young suffragist, the daughter of his father’s best friend, and a novelist whom Christopher admires greatly. Valentine is willing to accept Christopher as her lover, but they seem destined to have their plans obstructed by someone bent on hurting Christopher. Although no word of their desire is ever spoken between them, their feelings are obvious to others, who believe that Valentine already is Christopher’s mistress. On the night before his departure for the army, Christopher asks Valentine to spend the night with him. She consents, but again they are kept apart. Later, they both agree that it had been for the best, as neither seemed suited for an affair.

In France, unjustified troubles continue to haunt Christopher. Sylvia is at the bottom of most of them. Because she seems to think he will soon be killed and out of her reach, she seems compelled to hurt him as much as possible while he still lives. Christopher’s godfather, General Campion, is his highest ranking officer. The general, convinced by Sylvia that she is an abused wife, constantly berates Christopher for his brutality as a husband. He also berates him for getting dirty, mixing with his men, and helping them with their personal troubles; it is not fitting for an English officer to get into the dregs of war.

Christopher often thinks he is surrounded by people with troubles. One of his fellow officers, almost insane over an unfaithful wife, often has fits of madness that threaten to destroy company morale. The first in command is a drunken colonel whom Christopher tries to shield, thus getting himself into trouble with General Campion. Once, Christopher refuses leave to a Canadian because he knows his wife’s lover would kill the man if he went home. When the Canadian is killed in battle later on, it preys on Christopher’s mind that he had saved the soldier from one death only to lead him into another. Christopher’s good intentions constantly bring him discredit.

To Christopher’s distress, Sylvia travels to France to see him. Having accepted at last that no matter what she does, she cannot upset him emotionally, she remains true to her character in her determination to make him return to her in body. Her scheme fails. After she maneuvers him into her room, one of her former lovers and the drunken colonel open the door that she had left unlocked for them but that she had forgotten to lock when Christopher went in with her. Christopher is forced to throw out the two men to protect his wife’s honor. Having decided it is Christopher’s fault that his wife wants to entertain other men, General Campion again berates him.

It seems to Christopher that the whole war campaign is bogged down because of lack of effective communications between various parts of the army. To him, the failure is symbolic. Life, too, bogs down into beastly messes because of lack of communication between people. To him, the horror of the war is not his physical suffering and inconvenience but rather that the conflict is the end of everything that matters. Believing that England is not prepared either for victory or for defeat, that this is the end of everything good no matter who wins the battles, he finds it almost impossible to remember anything of his old creed or his way of life at home. With Valentine so far away, she, too, seems unreal to him. Like the others, General Campion admires and likes Christopher but cannot understand him and wants to make him suffer. Because Christopher had thrown the men out of Sylvia’s bedroom, General Campion sends him to the front.

At the front, Christopher is placed second in command to hopelessly outnumbered troops under the leadership of the drunken colonel. Finally forced into assuming command, he tries to sustain the shattered morale of his troops. The only thing that keeps his mind in balance is a dream of standing on a hilltop in peace, serenity, and privacy. Privacy is what he desires above all else. The army gives a man no chance to be alone or to keep his life and thoughts to himself. Because of his reticent nature, the lack of privacy is the worst hardship for Christopher. When an exploding shell buries him and two of his men under a pile of dirt, he digs out one of the soldiers and carries the other to safety through enemy fire. On his return, General Campion sends for him and relieves him of his command because his uniform is not spotless and flawless and because he had been reported away from headquarters. His heroism and disgrace mark the physical end of the war for Christopher.

Valentine receives a telephone call from Macmaster’s wife, who says that Christopher is home and almost out of his mind. Ready to give up everything to live with him and care for him, Valentine goes to him at once. She does not know or care about the story of his mental deterioration. The fact that he had never written to her also is of no importance. She intends to become his mistress, although she realizes she might first have to be his nurse. Back home in Valentine’s company on armistice night, Christopher is about to declare his love when they are interrupted by celebrating members of Christopher’s old company. His mind fuzzy, he finds nothing sad in their being thwarted again or in the obvious hate he sees in the eyes of a wife whose husband’s life he had saved in the trenches.

There are changes at Groby, too. Mark had married his Frenchwoman and made her Lady Tietjens, partly to spite Sylvia, who had leased the estate to an obnoxious rich American woman and her husband. It is said that Mark, having suffered a stroke just after the armistice, could not speak or move. The truth is that, partially paralyzed, he has simply withdrawn from the world. Like Christopher, he belongs to another era. Mark believes that the last of the Tietjens are misfits. Truth has given way to confusion and untruth, and the brothers are likely to be swallowed up in this mad new world to which neither belongs. Avoiding the rest of the world, he waits quietly for death. Christopher and Valentine now live in a cottage close by. Having refused to go back into government service or to accept help from his brother, Christopher becomes a dealer in antique furniture.

Sylvia finally decides to divorce Christopher so she can marry General Campion and go with him to India. Although she has given up all hope of getting Christopher to notice her again, she continues her petty attempts to make his life miserable. When she learns that Valentine is to have a baby, however, she becomes afraid that her attacks on Christopher and Valentine will harm the unborn child. She also begins to regret her last and cruelest act against Christopher and Mark: She had persuaded the American woman to cut down the Groby Great Tree, an immense cedar that had guarded the manor house for generations; for a time, she fears the wrath of the brothers because of her deed. Both feel, however, that the Groby Great Tree had symbolized the curse hanging over the family and that its removal might take away part of that curse. When they ignore her spite, she stops her vicious tricks and decides to let Christopher marry Valentine. Sylvia hates General Campion, too, but she wants to become a great official’s wife and be resplendent in a tiara.

Dying, Mark rationalizes his father’s death and knows that the old gentleman had not committed suicide but had died as a result of a hunting accident. He also realizes that the appearance and actions of Sylvia’s son prove that Christopher is his father, and that the boy is the rightful heir to Groby. It seems to Mark that he can at last understand and love his brother, and he believes that the tales he had heard about Christopher are really lies told by people who cannot understand Christopher or him because the Tietjens do not belong to this century of deceit, confusion, and untruth. Before he dies, Mark speaks once more, assuring Valentine that Christopher is a good man and asking her to be kind to him.

Bibliography

Brown, Dennis, and Jenny Plastow, eds. Ford Madox Ford and Englishness. New York: Rodopi, 2006. Collection of essays that assess Ford’s ideas about England and the concept of “Englishness. Considers him a key participant in Edwardian debates about these subjects. Many of Ford’s works are analyzed in terms of their Englishness, including Parade’s End.

Cassell, Richard A., ed. Critical Essays on Ford Madox Ford. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. An excellent collection of essays, most focusing on The Good Soldier but with significant attention paid to Parade’s End.

Haslam, Sara. Fragmenting Modernism: Ford Madox Ford, the Novel, and the Great War. New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Focuses on the modernist characteristics of Ford’s works, such as their fragmentation, use of the personal narrative, and literary technique. Includes a bibliography and an index.

Kingsbury, Celia Malone. The Peculiar Sanity of War: Hysteria in the Literature of World War I. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002. Examines the impact of World War I hysteria on standards of behavior and definitions of sanity as reflected in British novels, including Parade’s End.

Mizener, Arthur. The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford. 1971. Reprint. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1985. The definitive biography of Ford, a long and thorough study that includes an appendix with a separate discussion of Parade’s End.

Sniton, Ann Barr. Ford Madox Ford and the Voice of Uncertainty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. Studies Ford’s style in detail, showing how its hesitancy and ambiguity reflect Ford’s ambivalent attitude toward his times.

Wiesenfarth, Joseph, ed. History and Representation in Ford Madox Ford’s Writings. New York: Rodopi, 2004. The book’s essays analyze Ford’s works of historical fiction and nonfiction, including Parade’s End.